Wednesday, July 29, 2009

The GameBoy Advance has seen more than 1,000 games since it launched in 2001. Unfortunatley the system had problems with bootlegged games from China and illegal copies were made of some of the rarest GBA games. Inspite of this problem, there are still quite a few hard to find GameBoy Advanced games. Below is a list of the most expensive and rare GameBoy Advance games.

Most Valuable GBA Games

New Price: $1,000 | Used Price: $75 | See Current Prices
Ninja Five-O is a action platformer with stealth elements. You play as a ninja police officer who works through multiple levels to defeat a terrorist cell. You use swords, throwing stars, magic, and a grappling hook to defeat the enemy without getting caught.

The game was published by Konami but for some reason was never produced in large numbers. The game is very hard to find as a cartridge only but ridiculously rare with the box and manual. Ninja Five-O is also highly rated and on many Best of GBA lists.

New Price: $200 | Used Price: $40 | See Current Prices
Worms Blast is a puzzle action game for multiple platforms and Gameboy Advance. Unlike other Worms games that are more strategy focused, this spinoff plays very similar to Bust-A-Move but the Worms gain the ability to use different weapons as the stages progress.

UbiSoft released the game for Gamecube, PC, and Mac, but only the GameBoy Advance version has become rare and valuable. The GBA version was released later in 2003 than the Gamecube version. UbiSoft might have lowered production numbers after the Gamecube edition sold below expectations.

New Price: $140 | Used Price: $34 | See Current Prices
Fire Emblem is a strategy RPG. You control a unit of soldiers and must save the kingdom using different weapons and classes of soldiers. If a character dies in the game, they are died for good and will not come back.

This is the first of the Fire Emblem games to be released in the USA but the series had been going for quite a while in Japan. This first game was printed in fairly large numbers but not enough to meet demand. After Fire Emblem Awakening came out for the 3DS, prices have only increased.

New Price: $NA | Used Price: $30 | See Current Prices
Medabots: Metabee is a role playing game made by Natsume. You play as a boy who assembles and collects Medabot characters to fight against the Rubberrobo Gang. The game dynamics are similar to Pokemon. This is not to be confused with the game Medabots AX: Matabee, which is a fighting game and not very valuable.

Like Pokemon games, Medabots was released in two variations - Metabee and Rokusho. Rokusho appears later in this list.

New Price: $140 | Used Price: $30 | See Current Prices
Buster's Bad Dream is a side-scrolling action game. Buster teams up with other characters from Tiny Toon Adventures. Each character pairing has different combos they can pull off.

The game was released in Europe with the name Buster's Bad Dream, but the name was changed to Scary Dreams in the USA. The game was published by Consipiracy Entertainment in 2002, but never actually released. Copies of the game started appearing on eBay in 2005. Presumably, some were produced but then it was cancelled but a few cartridges managed to make it out in the public.

New Price: $130 | Used Price: $14 | See Current Prices
Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival is a remake of the Super Turbo game from the arcade. The game has all new character animations and complete button customization. SSFII Turbo Revival was released several months after the Gameboy Advance launched.

The game sold fairly well and isn't very rare in used condition, but is very hard to find brand new. There are only three or four new copies sold per year.

New Price: $120 | Used Price: $19 | See Current Prices
Castlevania Aria of Sorrow is an action game with heavy RPG elements. The game fits the Metroidvania style of Castlevania games, similar to Castlevania Symphony of the Night. You get different items in the game that open up new sections of the world and build stronger weapons and characters by collecting souls of killed enemies.

This was the third Castlevania game released for the Gameboy Advanced and is widely considered the best of the three. The game sold very well initially but is still very popular because of its wide critical acclaim. This popularity keeps prices high.

New Price: $113 | Used Price: $23 | See Current Prices
Mega Man Battle Network is a role-playing spinoff from the main Mega Man series. You control characters in a virtual world and must defeat viruses taking over the network. Battle is a hybrid of action RPG and card based gameplay.

This was the first of ten Battle Network games for the Gameboy Advance. People want to own the original and it sold fewer copies than the subsequent releases, which makes it the most expensive game in the series.

New Price: $100 | Used Price: $27 | See Current Prices
Pokemon Emerald is a role playing game in the long running Pokemon series. It is the third in the series for Gameboy Advance and takes place in the same location as Ruby and Sapphire. Emerald's featured Legendary is Rayquaza.

Emerald was the final Pokemon game released for Gameboy Advance. The title sold millions of copies, but Pokemon collectors need it in order to "catch 'em all" so still sells for a premium price.

New Price: $100 | Used Price: $27 | See Current Prices
Zelda Minish Cap is an adventure game in the long running Legend of Zelda series. You can use a Minish Cap that will shrink Link so he can access different areas.

Minish Cap was the only original Zelda game released for the GBA and received widespread praises. It is another example of a game that sold millions of copies, but is in such high demand that it continues to fetch a high resale price.

37
comments
:

In the post we use both "Gameboy Advance" and "Gameboy Advanced" because people search using both terms. The correct term is "Gameboy Advance", which is what we use most of the time. I don't know if there is an official space between "Game" and "Boy".

Tyler - If I had a list of the Best Game Boy Advance games Golden Sun would definitely be on there. I loved that game and am really excited for the DS version. Unfortunately Golden Sun is not as popular as other GBA games.

Golden Sun (paired with its sequel Golden Sun: The Lost Age) and the Final Fantasy: Dawn of Souls games are the best I have ever played for GBA. I used to be quite possibly the top Final Fantasy 1 nerd for NES I've ever known, and Square-Enix did some AMAZING justice to re-release not only the original style and feel, but enhance it with bonus missions that did not at all feel unnatural to a regular hardcore FF1 gamer like me. I was totally thrilled with it.

This school year was awesome. Me and a few friends completely revived the GBA. It turns out almost every single person in my grade either has a GBA or a GBA SP. It was awesome. Everyone was link cabling with Pokemon and stuff. The teacher had a pile of them on her desk from taking them away. Let's hope it happens again this year. (Grade 10)

Surprised Mother 3 isn't listed. I understand why it's not listed as the most popular, considering it never got released outside Japan, but still, the actual copies of the game I would assume fetch higher prices than what's already listed.

Should be worth mentioning that with GBA, that as far as value goes, it's the Ninja Five-O tier and everything else. The gap is just that significant. Anyone looking to ever collect GBA needs to get NFO now.

One thing that I noticed in your write-up of Pokemon Emerald that bothers me a little: you say that Emerald is the only game where you can get Rayquaza, which is incorrect. It can be captured in both Ruby and Sapphire as well.

Hate to come off as nitpicky, because aside from that awesome article!

I dunno, everyone says Ninja Five-O is really rare, but they I see copies on eBay all the time. I believe Word Safari: Friendship Totems and Math Patrol: The Kleptoid Threat are far more rare, as I have only seen 2 copies (snagged one of them) on eBay in the past 4 years.

This comment is a little late But wouldnt Metroid Fusion and Metroid Zero Mission be up there.There both very rare and both very good gamesIve seen fusion go for about 200$ and used for about $100Zero mission is a bit less then fusion

Sonic Battle? ROFL. What clown wrote this article? I can't even sell a NM condition cartridge of Sonic Battle for $10 on eBay, let alone $15. It's not at ALL rare, there's dozens of them for sale that no one wants.

I have a fixed EURO version of Super Street Fighter 2 turbo revival without Akuma glitch. It's a version ubisoft (who published the game outside japan) sent me when i contacted them about the glitch issue 10 years ago. to I think there are very few copies around since there's not trace of its existence on the whole world wide web... Anyone interested?

lol these games are hardly "rare". seen most of these in the past week of just browsing stores. how do you expect anyone with any knowledge to take this list seriously when Shantae isn't even on it? these prices are inaccurate as well, update or just delete this mess of lies

@anonymous - Thanks for comments. The article is about rare AND expensive games. We rank the list by most expensive and not number of copies produced because number of copies isn't really known.

Most of the games on this list are relatively rare (not a ton of copies available) but they are also popular so there is lots of demand. There are several games on the list that have millions of copies (Pokemon Emerald and Zelda Minish Cap) but they are still very sought after so they are pretty expensive.

Shantea is not on this list because it is Gameboy Advance games only. Shantea is the most expensive game on our Gameboy & Gameboy Color List

Funny, I actually have the majority of these. Also, I didn't think that Minish Cap or Aria of Sorrow would be considered rare. Or most of these for that matter, especially the Pokemon games given their popularity. But I guess therein lies their value. Medabots I can understand, since the games were sort of obscure so a limited run was expected. Same with Mega Man Battle Network, since again, first game in the series so probably pretty obscure too...